June 26, 2014

Strawberry Sherbet

Before you plan for strawberry picking with your little, one always plan what you are going to do with the pounds of strawberries you would end up with - this is what my first strawberry picking experience taught me. I had about 6 pounds of berries and I didn't waste a single one - How? I prepared 5 pints of jam with those fresh berries and froze the remaining. If you don't know how to freeze berries then listen - Just wash the berries, Pat them dry, remove the stem, leaves and pack in freezer ziplock bags - TADA! Frozen berries for smoothies or sherbet is ready.

When Summer Soiree had frozen treats for this week, I was sure of using my frozen berries for this luscious sherbet. Now coming to the difference between Sorbet and Sherbet - Simple, both are frozen fruit juices with sugar and water except that sherbet has some Dairy. Sherbet is a super easy frozen treat for your little ones when you have no ice-cream makers to churn and if you are curious to know my strawberry picking story or Jam recipe, then do come back for my next post :).

Ingredients:(Serves 4 People)

Frozen Strawberry Puree - 1 Cup (Unsweetened)

Sugar - 2/3 Cup (Add Less/More as you need)

Whole Milk - 1 Cup (Cold)

Water - 1/4 Cup

Lemon Juice - 1 Teaspoon

(Thaw Frozen Strawberry under cold running water for 10 minutes and blend in a mixer to fine puree. If you use fresh Strawberries then blend them to puree and strain to remove the seeds. We can also use half and half for more creamier results or use 2% or low fat milk for reducing fat contents in your sherbet. I got about 3 cups of sherbet for the above ingredients)

Method:

Take a bowl(Preferably steel or glass), Pour in Strawberry puree, water, add sugar and stir until it dissolves.

Add Milk, Lemon juice to the above puree and stir well.

Wipe the bowl from the sides and wrap the bowl with a plastic wrap. Keep this inside the freezer and refrigerate.

When it starts to freeze from the sides, that is in about 1-2 hours (depends on your freezer settings), take out the sherbet and transfer to a mixer and blend it, this time it will not be that thick while blending.

Repeat the process every 2 hours for at least 5-6 times. First time it looks like a smoothie, it will get thicker as we blend it for the 4th or 5th time(Like below pictures). The more you blend the creamier it results in.

Freeze it overnight. It will be perfectly set for the morning. Just keep the sherbet outside the freezer 5 minutes before serving as it might be slightly hard to scoop straight from the freezer.